The confines of cool

This post was updated to add the names of mom lit books I linked to.

The conference was called Motherlode. So it seems fitting that I required a period of gestation after it was all over, just to absorb the many thought-provoking presentations and discussions on motherhood that were featured.

Feminism, mom activism, why parents blog and whether dads can mother were just a few of the many topics covered at the four-day event held by York University's Association for Research on Mothering.

I'd like to talk about a few in this space over the next few days. Because though the conference is long over, the issues won't go away.

What better place to start than with Andi Buchanan and her talk on how "The Escalation of Cool" among modern mothers is just another way moms are being pressured to conform. You can read the whole presentation here on her blog.

One thing you should know about Buchanan is she's not afraid to tell it like it is. Or I should say, write it like it is. Three years ago, the Philadelphia writer broke ground with her book Mother Shock: Loving Every (Other) Minute of It, which didn't shy away from how scary and bone-numbingly exhausting and lonely new motherhood can be. And in doing so she warmed the hearts of others who found comfort knowing they were not the only ones feeling lost in a foreign land.

Mother Shock hit the book stores at the height of the so-called "intensive mothering" trend, when the prevailing middle-class notion of the "good mother" was one who happily immersed herself in pureeing prunes, writing her own lullaby lyrics and skin-to-skin contact with baby 24/7 - at the expense of her own identity. Buchanan dared to write the truth about her own ambivalence and the fact that while she adored her infant daughter, life was not all bliss and Kodak moments.

Fast forward to 2006 and suddenly, the downside of motherhood has come charging out of the closet and hijacked the mainstream media. Now, if we are to believe the latest spate of mom lit, it's de rigueur to favour litchi martinis with the girls over reading Dr. Seuss. (See books like Confessions of a Naughty Mommy, Peanut Butter, Playdates and Prozac and Mommies Who Drink to name a few. Or the recent rant by a mom in Britain's The Guardian (oops, the Daily Mail) under the headline "Sorry, but my children bore me to death!")

As Buchanan puts it, "if you aren't a bored mother, a depressed mother, an I-could-care-less mother, a mother who drinks, you are not a mother who is having an authentic experience."

Perhaps the glamourization of the "bad mom" is simply a natural overcorrection by those resisting the earlier pressure to hyperparent. But it still ticks Buchanan off. Because it's also just one more dangerous way of generalizing about the experience of motherhood. As she notes:

What does this mean for mothers who don't have this kind of "cool," "hip" experience - or whose actual experience of addiction and depression is not glamorous and trendy - and aren't they as excluded from the landscape as others were when there was a similarly non-diverse lens aimed at motherhood? And what does this say about the scarcity of our options when it comes to being a good mother?

Whining about motherhood sells. So does sniping. That's why books and newspapers fan the flames. They've done it with the increasingly irrelevant mommy wars between at-home and working moms (See Linda Hirshman, Caitlin Flanagan's To Hell With All That, Leslie Morgan Steiner's Mommy Wars, and Happy Housewives by Darla Shine). And now they're doing it with drinking, partying, naughty and unhappy mommies.

Why should we care? Because by polarizing mothers and turning them into cartoon characters, the authentic stories of the majority who fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum get lost.

You don't have to look far to see the trend is flourishing. The cover of Chatelaine's November issue pitches a story called "Why I Hate Breastfeeding,"  on the heels of an earlier article in defence of the "too posh to push" trend of Caesarean sections on demand.

But read this month's story and you find it's not an "anti-breastfeeding" story at all, or a motherhood whinge. Instead it's an important perspective from a woman who struggled through months of pain feeding her babies and felt abandoned and judged by those who should have been helping and encouraging her. So why the misleading headline?

Because as Buchanan points out, there's something juicy about the image of a bunch of mamas duking it out. Whether it's breast versus bottle, Caesarean versus natural childbirth, working versus stay-at-home, or cool and bored versus happy and matronly.

Shame really. Because it doesn't do most of us perched somewhere between the extremes much good.

Be cool by all means. Or don't be. But let's just stop pretending that one is superior to the other or any more legitimate.

Move over for Daddy

The following also appears in the Life Section of today's Toronto Star, as part of a regular monthly column.

You can dress it up as "gender equality" or "choice feminism" or "mothers' rights." But when it comes down to it, the hot-button issue in many modern households is really about which adult puts the pasta on, who unloads the dishwasher and who hauls themselves off the couch after a 12-hour day to go fill the bathtub with SpongeBob bubbles.

And don't forget the bagel seeds on the counter either.  Because you never know when an unwiped countertop will be just the thing to push a grown woman over the edge and make her go ballistic.

Arlie Hochschild called it The Second Shift. More recently, in her much disputed essay "Homeward Bound" in The American Prospect, Linda Hirshman described it as "the domestic glass ceiling."

They are referring to the fact that while women have made big inroads in the workplace, they still bear the brunt of household chores and child-rearing duties. In other words, even if they have paying jobs, the gender gap reigns once they leave the office or the shop floor.

A slew of studies have shown this, but most working women don't need statistics to prove what they already know.

What we do need are strategies to fix it, or to at least turn the beast around so that we don't drop dead of fatigue or shrivel up with resentment by the time the kids leave home.

At the risk of offending the sisterhood, I have a little one. How about we start letting go of the reins? Even though everybody knows we can all do it better because, you know, we're The Mothers.

We might not want to admit it, but when you're the one who carries the baby for nine months, gives birth, breastfeeds and, in most cases, acts as primary caregiver/household manager for the early months, it's hard to let go of the notion that you're the Superior Species.

The thing is, if women want equality on the domestic front, we have to be willing to move over and give the guys some room. And keep our mouths shut too, even if we have to bite our tongues until they bleed.

A recent issue of Canadian Family magazine gave voice to the frustration some fathers feel about their status as executive assistant. Among their top beefs: being treated like the babysitter; being shut out; and people assuming they are incapable idiots.

"Parenting can be pretty territorial," Montreal psychotherapist Vikki Stark told the magazine. "A lot of women are giving lip service to equal parenting, but they really want to keep control."

The theme is also found in the 2004 book of essays by men writers called The Bastard On The Couch, in a section titled "Can't be trusted with simple tasks."

"Sometimes I just want to give up trying to be a coparent," writes Fred Leebron, a Pennsylvania father of three married to a professor.

He adds: "I can't compete with my wife in this arena. She can compete with me in the career arena, sure, but I can't compete with her in the parenting arena."

Leebron recalls that when his first child was born, the nurse advised him not to copy his wife when he handled the baby. "Be yourself."

But 'fess up fellow mothers. Do we really want them to be themselves? Or wouldn't we rather they do it exactly the way we tell them - or not at all?

I admit it. I have rediapered the baby. I have rearranged dirty dishes in the dishwasher. Bitched about the shortage of green vegetables on the plate. Even - and it kills me to say it - told my spouse he reads the stories too fast.

I have wondered aloud if, in the event I get hit by a bus, the children would go the rest of their lives without clean sheets or having their fingernails cut.

And my God, why wouldn't it drive me crazy that he could manage to "watch the kids" and read a book on the sofa at the same time? I, on the other hand, never would have permitted myself to try. And whose problem is that?

Which takes me to the suitcase analogy, a godsend for those of us who need visual images to grasp the problem at hand. If I insist on grudgingly carrying all the suitcases in the house - laundry, toilets, homework helper, dental appointment duty - I rob everyone else of the chance. No one can pick up a suitcase and share the load unless I put it down first.

I was forced to remind myself of this recently, when I took my real suitcase and headed off to the airport for a 10-day vacation with a friend. I left in a frantic state, with no food in the fridge, no clean laundry and no 10-page list of instructions. And guess what? They all survived. Had the time of the lives in fact, doing things their way. The sheets were changed, the house was clean, the homework got done.

I forgot to ask about the green vegetables.

Raise a glass to our women friends

She was tall, lanky and even-tempered, with brown hair down her back and an arc of freckles across her nose. I was short and mouthy with a blond pixie cut and sunburned cheeks. But opposites attract. Kathy was my first best friend.

We met before we were allowed to cross the street by ourselves. She lived five houses down on the same side. We spent summers climbing backwards up the slide and emptying sand out of our Keds, winters at the ice rink and making snowmen. In Grade 1, we each stuck an arm out front and pointed our fingers before skipping across the crosswalk to school every day. At age 9, we scrawled our "blood sisters oath" in that slanted, loopy writing of girls, pricked our thumbs and signed in blood. I moved away. We lost touch, but I still have that declaration of friendship in a shoebox.

There were other best friends who I long ago lost track of but who will always be embedded in memories of everything from double dutch to my first bra. Susie and Nancy and Christine and Carol and Cathy.

But none as enduring as Laurie. We met at 16 on a summer French immersion program. She's since become trilingual. I still get stumped on the subjunctive. We stayed in touch, despite never living in the same region of the country. I was her maid of honour, she is godmother to my son. I flew out when her twins were a week old. Even got to do a couple of night feedings. She was here looking after the three big brothers when my youngest was born. Over the years we have accumulated a hefty stack of photographs and handwritten letters, and too many in-jokes and family crises and tears and long-distance bills to remember.

Five years ago, to mark a quarter century of friendship, our two families shared a cottage together. Six boys played pirates on the sand dunes of P.E.I. The moms snuck off to a teahouse one afternoon and shared a bottle of wine on a beach blanket under the stars one evening. 'Cause girlfriends need time alone to catch up properly.

This year, our 30th, we decided to do it alone. A luscious 10-day holiday to catch up over wine and gooey cheese and smelly olives and cups of tea. The luxury of time to just sit and go exploring and shopping and let conversation spill out in spontaneous waves. Far away from newspapers, telephones and all those males we share our lives with.

On Mother's Day we were together, alone, missing our kids (for a few minutes anyway). But we figure they understand why, and hope they'll remember: That friends are precious. That the real ones endure despite your flaws and weaknesses and bad decisions and bitchy moments. That with the best ones, time goes by and you just pick up where you left off.

But don't take them for granted. Celebrate.

More good news for Big Healthy Girls

Every time a woman with curves and a legit derriere breaks into the fashion pages, skeptics are quick to say it won't last. No one will buy it! Women want fantasy! All they crave is a Diet Coke and the escapism that comes with flipping through pages of stickbugs wearing things they'd never be caught dead in.

Well, Star fashion editor Bernadette Morra's interview today with plus-size model Liis Windischmann is a sign that maybe Big Healthy Girls are gaining ground. The 34-year-old Windischmann, who's 5-foot 10 and 203 pounds, says when she shows up on the runway with her much skinnier colleagues, "the crowd goes crazy."

Whoo-hoo!

And don't you love those women over at the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty too?

Last week came news that the Spanish government is fed up with "anorexia chic" too. It is apparently putting pressure on its retailers to stop using ultra-skinny models and broaden the definition of beauty to include a range of shapes and sizes.

In the face of a mega-industry out there with an agenda of making women feel inadequate from the toenails up, these developments are but a squeak in the wilderness. But maybe there's hope that today's little girls will grow up with more than one message image of beauty in their heads.

Let's hear it for Excellent Girls

She was a traditionally built lady, after all, and she did not have to worry about dress size, unlike those poor, neurotic people who were always looking in mirrors and thinking that they were too big. What was too big anyway? Who was to tell another person what size they should be? It was a form of dictatorship, by the thin, and she was not having any of it.

One thing about Precious Ramotswe, the ample protagonist in Alexander McCall Smith's best-selling The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. She's got attitude. The kind I wish we could instill in our young girls today amid the barrage of messages that they can never be too thin.

Hear that, Elle Girl! Are you listening, Seventeen? We're not having any of it!

One of the most endearing features of McCall Smith's series, set in Botswana, is its celebration of strong, full-figured women. Or as one admiring young man describes them: "Big girls, you know what I mean, big excellent girls."

Bring it on. Let's hear it for Excellent Girls. And not just in Africa. In North America, too. Scrap all those column inches wasted on South Beach versus Atkins and liposuction and feigned concern over the wasting figures of Lindsay and Mary-Kate. Give us more pictures of the stunning Queen Latifah and other big curvy women who exude confidence and pride.

No small feat, of course. We are, after all, up against multi-billion-dollar empires whose raison d'être is that a woman should never feel satisifed with her face, hair, breasts, skin, fingernails, and, more recently, even her nether regions.

But some women - and men - are starting to talk back. There's Eve Ensler, whose show The Good Body uses humour to explore women's universal obsession with their not-good-enough appearances and the lengths they go to in order to change them. She's touring North America and was in Toronto earlier this month.

And this weekend, The Century Project is on display in Hamilton. It's a collection of nude portraits by California photographer Frank Cordelle of females from newborn to almost a century old. If you can't go to the show, at least scroll through the breath-taking photographs and personal stories on the website, where girls and women recount agonies and victories in coming to terms with their bodies. Like Jody, 33, who says she has never been anything but fat. She poses proudly and proclaims that "fat women are real women" and that beauty exists in many forms, despite the messages from a culture preoccupied with being thin.

"I have learned to celebrate myself," she writes. "I have given myself permission to acknowledge myself as beautiful, powerful, and dignified."

I found another source of inspiration recently in the South African show Umoja, still playing in Toronto. During the spectacular two hours of song and dance, women of various shapes and sizes - including "traditionally built" ones - strut their stuff with infectious pride. The example they set is powerful: Beauty is not a matter of what the scale says. It's all in whether you can embrace yourself and feel great in the body God gave you, regardless of the dress size.

So now when those familiar feelings of self-loathing start to rumble, I go put on my Umoja CD. Sometimes I even dance. And it works. 'Cause it's all in the attitude. Take it from this Excellent Girl.

Way shorter than a sitcom and so much funnier

Given that not long ago I was waxing on about realistic portrayals of moms in the media (i.e. ones who yell) and given that most real mothers I know are grateful for a laugh (especially at the end of a March break that hasn't involved rubbing sun cream on their children's shoulders), I feel compelled to send you here. Go. Right now.

Okay, if you didn't do what you were told, I'll explain. These are video clips of Felicity Huffman, a.k.a. Desperate Housewife Lynette Scavo, meeting three of her TV mother predecessors. I refuse to say more. Except they're short. And funny. And they involve Carol Brady, June Cleaver and Lily Munster. Remember them? Hint: The monster mama isn't the scariest of the bunch.

These clever clips are courtesy of Dove soap. That's the company that stepped out of the box and came up with that campaign for real beauty (as in women who look like regular people). Now it appears to be doing the same for real moms.

Harried mother Scavo/Huffman is an ideal vehicle. In a refreshingly candid interview in January, Huffman noted she has a lot in common with her TV alter ego. She told 60 Minutes interviewer Lesley Stahl:

"Oh yeah, I'm out of control. I spent yesterday out of control. I spent last night out of control."

And then, when asked if motherhood is the best experience of her life:

"No, no, and I resent that question. Because I think it puts women in an untenable position, because unless I say to you, 'Oh Lesley, it's the best thing I've ever done with my whole life,' I'm considered a bad mother."

Thank you Felicity. I'll get right over to Shoppers to pick up some Dove Calming Night body wash.

Because I adore my children. Love them to pieces. Couldn't imagine life without them. But some days really suck. And it's nice to know that even Hollywood stars who are skinny and blonde and successful have bad mother days too.

Green with envy and not proud of it

Okay, so will someone please tell me why there are so many people out there who insist on flaunting their bulging bank accounts and impeccable taste while the rest of us struggle to balance the chequebook and figure out if we can afford to spring for pizza on a Friday night? And why, even though it drives me nuts, do I continue to read about them?

Take this recent story in a rival newspaper. Seems the well-heeled folks in Rosedale are up in arms about how a proposed condo development might imperil the future of the hoity-toity foodie shops known as "Five Thieves." And (horrors!) it will cast shade on the tennis courts at the Club. Alas, the entitled do not go down without a fight.

"We love our overpriced bread, we love our $10 pineapples and our $20 grapes," says Jennifer Ayres, president of the 200-member Summerhill Residents Association. "We'll pay for them."

Who are these people? And why aren't they embarrassed to say such things in a national newspaper? More important, why do I keep on reading? And I do.

I admit it, I've read every word of the ninepounddictator. Not just because Rebecca Eckler is funny and kind of surreal. But because I totally cannot relate and the whole thing astounds me. A nanny who flies away with them on holidays to look after ONE KID? Snotty private clubs. Thrice-weekly dinners at restaurants with a 2-year-old. Angst over pricey preschools. A portable DVD player for a toddler! It makes me crazy - but in a delicious sort of way. What's wrong with me?

We've never had a family holiday involving an airplane. No nanny either. And I can count on two fingers the number of times per year the grownups in our house escaped to a restaurant alone when our kids were little, never mind bringing them along.

See where I'm going with this? Reading these things are bad for my attitude.

Especially when it is March break and it is raining. And I am already just a little prone to self-pity. Why can't we be one of those families lined up six-deep at the airport going off to smell the hibiscus somewhere? Or heading to the slopes (even though we don't own skis). Instead, it's the prospect of juggling kids and work for five days, because who wants to take a week of precious vacation time to do nothing, in the mud.

But this is stinking thinking. What I should be is grateful. Every day. That our family of six is healthy, with a roof over our heads (even if it does leak more often than we'd like) and food on the table.

So I'm quitting being a voyeur now. No more blogs by yummy mommies. No more websites where parents weigh the merits of Bugaboo versus Silver Cross or the Mayan Riviera versus Veradero. Come to think of it, forget the style sections too. Who needs one more reminder that your decor is so 1982. Or that you're a complete slob if you don't get a pedicure every four weeks. Starting today, I am embracing reality and being thankful for it.

At least until tomorrow.

Motherhood issues on International Women's Day

There's much to celebrate about the way so many mothers these days are reaching out to each other for mutual support and camaraderie. The blogosphere is abuzz with mamas tapping away at the keyboard. Bookshelves are cracking under the weight of new anthologies on motherhood by writers who aren't afraid to talk bluntly about the gruelling and scary parts. Moms are connecting online, through formal networks and at ad hoc neighbourhood drop-ins.

But one thing still painfully clear this International Women's Day is all mothers are not equal. Not when it comes to support networks and access to services.

Last week, one of Toronto's upscale neighbourhoods marked the opening of Becoming Maternity & Parenting Centre, offering classes, groups and counselling for new and expectant parents. Like other similar resource centres already up and running in the GTA, it provides services such as breastfeeding groups and sessions for adoptive parents. But you can tell by its website the kind of clientele it expects to attract. There's a $45 course on helping your pet adapt to a new baby and a shop selling fashionable Diapees and Wipees bags and wipe holders along with the nursing bras. "Yummy Mummy" television host Erica Ehm was featured at the opening.

You can't argue with something that brings parents together. It's just that we also need those kinds of resources out there in neighbourhoods where people can't afford to pay membership fees, are facing a language barrier or may not know any of the other parents in their high-rise or neighbourhood.

The last time I stopped by one of the Ontario Early Years Centres, which offer free services, information and activities for parents and kids under age 6, I met mothers who had lugged babies and toddlers on two buses in freezing temperatures to get to the Brampton location. That's how much they needed the company.

Last week, in the wake of the tragic deaths of two young Markham children and the murder charges against their mother, community workers spoke about the shortage of services and counsellors. They cited "incredible loneliness," lack of support and economic stress felt by immigrant women. Most don't know how to access mainstream services and have little understanding of mental illnesses like postpartum depression, they said.

One place that offered a friendly voice in the middle of the night was the Parent Help Line, a 24-hour phone-in service operated by Kids Help Phone. But last month it closed down, citing a lack of funding. Who knows where the 20,000 Canadian parents it helped every year will take their questions and worries.

The latest Statistics Canada figures, released yesterday in a report called Women in Canada, indicate a lot of Canadian mothers are trying to cope on their own. One in five families with children were headed by women in 2001. In 2003, 38 per cent of those were in the low-income category. Even though two-thirds of all mothers with kids under age 3 work outside the home, there's no national childcare program to relieve the huge stress around who looks after the kids or to provide universal access to early education.

In the current issue of Bitch, the magazine celebrates its 10-year anniversary with a story that charts the progress of feminism and outlines its various factions. Writer Rachel Fudge reminds her readers that "feminism isn't something that happened to your mother or grandmother and is now over. It's living, breathing and evolving."

For mothers, there's still a lot of work to do.